Lil Wayne Deathwatch Intensifies

"As for Wayne himself," wrote SOTC buddy Tom Breihan in a startling kicker to a startlingly empathic essay about Lil Wayne for this year's Pazz and Jop issue, "it is my great hope that he'll live to see the end of 2009." (Breihan put it slightly less delicately in an earlier L Magazine feature: "Wayne, meanwhile, probably does not have another great album in him, thanks to his debilitating cough syrup habit. He's looking more and more fried every day, and he should probably place just a few spots below Amy Winehouse on your celebrity death-watch list.")

Granting that the above video is cut in every possible way to make Wayne look like a delusional, homeless maniac, let's also admit that he spends at least half of this clip whispering maniacally and saying, on national television, things like I'm a rapper. That's who I am Miss Katie. And I'm a gangsta. And I do what I want... while Couric stares in mystified awe. How terrified are the Grammy producers about Wayne's scheduled performance right now? Is the tape delay on that going to be like three hours? A full day? [Video via 2DopeBoyz]